Nokia-Siemens Axing 17,000 Positions 87
alphadogg writes with troubling news for the network hardware joint-venture between Nokia and Siemens. Quoting the article: "Struggling network infrastructure vendor Nokia Siemens Networks is planning to cut 17,000 jobs worldwide, as it aims to cut $1.35 billion from its costs by the end of 2013, the company said Wednesday. About 23% of the company's 74,000 employees will be laid off. The 4 1/2-year-old joint venture between Nokia and Siemens has been struggling to compete with Swedish Ericsson and Chinese vendor Huawei. Parent company Nokia's ongoing problems have made Nokia Siemens' situation even more difficult."
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Maybe it is like when an illiterate nigger speaks their typical gutter pidgin and wants to ax you a question.
Illiterate niggers like Geoffrey Chaucer, you mean? (See The Miller's Tale for a use in the first stanza)
Re:Missionary? (Score:5, Funny)
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Virgin moderator apparently.
Those virgins can be so unruly. They need moderation.
Where will most of the jobs be cut? (Score:5, Interesting)
Any idea on which countries will have the most positions lost? The article didn't mention this bit. Really is too bad, this is not a great time to be out of a job.
Re:Where will most of the jobs be cut? (Score:5, Informative)
Hi, European NSN employee here. The company is selling or putting into "permanent maintenance mode" basically all of its R&D business units with the exception of CDMA/LTE Mobile Broadband unit. This means that Packet Networks (Carrier Ethernet + MPLS), Optical Networks and Microwave Transport are being cut. Hopefully the B.U. will be sold (it already happened with Microwave Transport) and the engineers won'tl be fired.
At the cost of sounding vendicative and resented (I confess, I am, a little bit), let me say that NSN has been a complete mess since day 1 (april 2007). We have been struggling from day one with bad management, bad planning, bad product line definition, bad choices, millions and millions of money wasted with idiotic things, while headcount in Europe continously got less and less (and India and China grew) to be more competitive with Huawei, Ericcson, etc... And even in all of that, we did some excellent products.
However NSN grew from 60000 (Nokia Networks + Siemens Networks merge) to 74000 with Motorola Networks acquisition *even if right after 1 month from the merge they started headcount reduction and voluntary leave plans*. We have been struggling psychologically with that for 4 years. It seems that it will be over soon.
mod the parent up (Score:2)
Out of mod points, but this one needs it
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Hope you all find work with more productive endeavors soon. Maybe even with some of the competitors listed in the article. It is always painful to hear about poorly directed labor resources, but the sooner a shift is made, the sooner a more sustainable allocation of labor can happen and the sooner more wealth can be created. Good luck to all those who were fired in finding new and better work.
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Other EU employee here. Sorry, but not all is going maintenance, some strategic business lines are getting extra fund and attention. Same for some countries. Additionally, we finally acknowledge who are our customers (telcos) and who is not (almost everyone else).
Where most of the cuts are is where the product lines are. All these things we will stop developing will mean headcount reduction. For what I know, in europe, it means portugal, finland, germany, poland. Pretty sure India will suffer as well. No i
nitpick. Drrr took ur jeebs (Score:1)
When they hire people it's said they 'create' jobs. So it's only fair to call this 'destroying' jobs.
People are not the largest cost of doing business (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless perhaps you're looking at a CEO's salary, there are other areas besides HR that cost a company money. Add to that:
The 4 1/2-year-old joint venture between Nokia and Siemens has been struggling to compete with Swedish Ericsson and Chinese vendor Huawei.
Equipment and facilities can be purchased or leased again. But innovation and attracting and retaining key talent is priceless. What are they losing in order to save their budget?
Re:People are not the largest cost of doing busine (Score:5, Insightful)
Equipment and facilities can be purchased or leased again. But innovation and attracting and retaining key talent is priceless. What are they losing in order to save their budget?
Who cares? It's more important that they keep their profits high for each quarter, so the CEO can get a bigger bonus. Why should the CEO care about his company's long-term future?
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Exactly. That's why we need to just get rid of government altogether, so we don't have that problem! Then everything can be like it was in the 50s, when there was no government.
Moron.
Re:People are not the largest cost of doing busine (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say that government is actually the key stabilizing force in the market.
Where the Fed can cut interest rates to 0% or raise them to 10%?
This argument is silly, the Fed's chief goal is market stability, and sustained growth.
Do you want to explain how a company can plan years into the future when the EPA can declare tomorrow that oxygen is a pollutant?
The EPA is around to protect the environment; if your business model requires you destroying the environment to succeed, then you need to deal with the fact that the general populace doesn't want to sacrifice their breathable air so you can turn a profit.
Where Congress can pass a new minimum wage or new tax that makes your business model unsustainable?
If your business model requires paying workers wages that keep them below the poverty line, then you shouldn't (and shouldn't be allowed to) put it into practice. It seems like you would argue that slavery is good business model, if only the damn government would stay out of your way.
The success of your business shouldn't be valued over the success, happiness, and prosperity of society as a whole, sorry.
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The EPA is around to protect the environment
And the TSA is around to protect us from terrorists. I agree with most of what you are saying, but your logic isn't going to convince anyone.
Simplistic to say gov't (de)stabalizing (Score:2)
You apparently see government as a destabilizing force in the market, causing uncertainty. I would say that government is actually the key stabilizing force in the market.
That is a very simplistic outlook.
Good governmental policies implemented by good government officials can be stabilizing.
Good or bad governmental policies implemented by bad government officials can be destabilizing.
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Oh noes! Congress might raise minimum wage! Here's an interesting factoid:
Average worker hourly rate in 1965: 19.61$
Average worker hourly rate in 2007: 19.71$
Average CEO hourly rate in 1965: 490.31$
Average CEO hourly rate in 2007: 5419.97$
You know what, I don't think that congress raising minimum wage is where we should focus our attention...
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Taxes on the rich were far higher too. Heh.
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And they had a ton more loopholes. Hence they paid less than they do today:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist01z1.xls [whitehouse.gov]
In 1950, the US spent $42,562 million off of a $293 Billion GDP or 14.5% of GDP
In 1955, the US spent $68,444 million off of a $415 Billion GDP or 16.5% of GDP
In 2010, the US spent $3,456,213 million off of a $14.5T GDP or 23.7% of GDP
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It was 18% in 1995, and it was 17% in 2000, 19% in 2007, and now its 23.7... hmm. What happened between 2007-2010 which could have possibly caused such a substantial increase in gov spending against the GDP in the lest few years? I don't have the stats, but I'm sure you'll see similar blips around 1927-30's and during WW2. All I'm getting at is looking at raw stats without context doesn't give the whole picture of what the gov was spending their money on, or why.
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Based on the figures you provide, taxes are still somewhat higher or about the same as the 50's as a percent of GDP. This supports the fact that although there were high marginal tax rates that there were significant tax loopholes to avoid these rates. As recently as the 70s, there were ways to get writeoffs higher than the amount of money spent. In the 80s, almost all of those loopholes were shut down. So, it is not accurate to compare tax rates of today with those of 60 years ago.
Re:People are not the largest cost of doing busine (Score:5, Informative)
You're a complete moron.
1) Taxes were much, much higher in the 50s than there are now. Go look it up. The 1% paid 90+%.
2) With all the spending on the Cold War, there's no way the USG was much smaller as a percentage of GDP than now.
3) The EPA is there to prevent pollution from making this place like China. I guess you'd prefer living in Beijing where you need to wear a respirator when you're outside?
4) The Fed has been around since the early 20th century. If you have a complaint with them, but you're saying the 50s were great, then you're obviously a complete idiot as nothing has changed since then WRT the Fed.
5) Congress has been able to pass new taxes since Congress was invented, you moron.
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You flame but you don't respond to what the poster actually said. Let's look at white house data: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist01z1.xls [whitehouse.gov]
In 1950, the US spent $42,562 million off of a $293 Billion GDP or 14.5% of GDP
In 1955, the US spent $68,444 million off of a $415 Billion GDP or 16.5% of GDP
In 2010, the US spent $3,456,213 million off of a $14.5T GDP or 23.7% of GDP
So, sorry. federal spending is MUCH higher as a percentage of GDP than in the 50's.
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You're the moron. He's complaining about the government being able to pass new laws or regulations; there's no government in human history that doesn't have those powers. That's the entire function of government: to pass new laws.
Go fuck off you coward.
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Exactly. That's why we need to just get rid of government altogether, so we don't have that problem! Then everything can be like it was in the 50s, when there was no government.
Moron.
Don't sign your posts! :)
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Stop being such a rude asshole. The OP obviously was one of these Teabaggers who complains about the size of government, and would really prefer if there was almost no government at all, so I was just pointing out that back in the 50s, when most Americans think everything was rosy and wonderful, our government really wasn't much different from what it is now, and in fact the income tax rates then were far higher than they are now.
I certainly don't see any non-Americans complaining about their government ma
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Slashing people shows bankers a willingness to be ruthless assholes so they will then loan money. I've seen various solutions, none that do much good.
In one case I know of the Nokia cellphone side gutted the staff of a critical infrastructure product that was intended to bring up a US data center.
They 'laid off' everyone with zero notice and pretty much told to go home.
The way they terminated those employees is what rankled. They got the standard Nokia severance.
A friend in that group went on to make more m
Re:People are not the largest cost of doing busine (Score:4, Informative)
They 'laid off' everyone with zero notice and pretty much told to go home.
The way they terminated those employees is what rankled. They got the standard Nokia severance.
I will bite. As a Nokia Employee for the last 4 years("the hard years"), I can tell you that getting laid off from Nokia is a good deal.
I would prefer to be laid off immediately with an amazing severance. Being told that you are being let go and hanging around is a real morale killer for yourself and the remaining workers.
A friend in that group went on to make more money, less bureaucracy, better health care and much better job security and they didn't have to get any windows phone shit on them.
Nice for him(or they?). I'm sure having Nokia on his resume helped him land that job. I'm not quite sure I understand though why this is relevant since Nokia pays well, has very good healthcare and the job security was great until the company fell on hard times. Business is a competition and that secure job might not be so pretty in a few years.
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look, if you got 70k people.. then yes, it is a significant cost of doing business. a very significant cost.
at least they're looking like they'll get severance, but it's a lot of folk outside those that also lose(have lost) jobs. the performance of nsn hasn't exactly been stellar, I suppose they knew that too.
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$1.35B / 17,000 = ~$79,500 annual cost per employee.
Assuming those cost savings are purely employee related of course... salaries, benefits, training, etc. Easily can come out to $80k for a single employee.
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This is all the fault of the M$ plant Elop.
Elop has no power over NSN. It is run by a separate board and CEO.
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You do understand that Nokia Siemens Networks makes telco equipment such as antennas and switches? None of which runs Windows, except for (perhaps) monitoring software.
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Qt? (Score:3, Interesting)
Nokia bought TrollTech some years ago and while they didn't fire a bunch of employees after their switch to Windows Mobile, I'm guessing with this move TrollTech's development efforts will be harder to justify. It's unfortunate really.
On the positive side, unemployment here in Norway is below 4% at the moment. And maybe the strategic direction of Qt will go back to...devices people actually have.
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Nokia Siemens Networks has nothing to do with QT which seems to be the future of Nokia low end phones.
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I would think they aren't related since QuickTime (QT) is an Apple product. Oh you meant Qt the C++ framework.
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heyy razor.
haven't you noticed already that nothing nokia says about qt has actually happened 12 months down the line like they said?
that said, I don't think qt has future on WP, on the other hand.. qt has a future - and is still very much a current tech.
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What the fuck has Nokia Siemens Networks to do with Qt, Windows Mobile or TrollTech?
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What the fuck has Nokia Siemens Networks to do with Qt, Windows Mobile or TrollTech?
money. same answer to "what the fuck has nokia mobile phones to do with nsn".
The N9 is Meego/QT based (Score:2)
You can develop in Python too if you want. Hell, you can write bash scripts if you want... Which makes it an intriguing multi purpose mobile computing device which can talk to anything.
You just can't buy one if you are in UK, Germany, USA etc. Wonder why.
When the bell tolls (Score:1)
IT is not immune (Score:1)
Everyone is saying IT is immune from the economy. This should be a wakeup call for all those feeling snug.
Our sector can and will get hit too- especially the longer the economic doldrums and uncertainty lasts.
Re:IT is not immune (Score:5, Insightful)
"Everyone is saying IT is immune from the economy"
who is saying that?
The only people who say that are those who profit from saying it. Educational institutions who want more business. CEOs and others who want more cheap labor. Governments who have become dependent on infinite economic growth to fuel their spending.
Talk to regular people, regular engineers... and we all say IT is just as vulnerable. With free trade and a globally educated work force... most of IT is as expendable as manual labor is. Sure if you're in the top 1% of your field, you might always have a job...but that's pretty much true of any active field.
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That's the point: in IT, everybody is in that 1% :)
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Everyone is saying IT is immune from the economy.
What? I don't know anyone who says that.
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Read slashdot. Everyday I read comments from people on here saying how great IT is; how we don't *understand* the occupy movement because IT isn't hurt by the economy, and how the down economy isn't touching them because they are in IT and how many head-hunters rang them up asking for their resume.
We may be less affected than other industries- but it does hit home with us too.
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Thank you Mr. Pedant.
If you spend any time on Slashdot you will see it is the majority view on here.
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I've been around on Slashdot long enough, and I really do not see evidence to justify the the claim that "everyone" thinks as you suggested. That's not being pedantic, rather it is calling you on your hyperbole. I believe that some idiots and naifs do think that IT is immune from economic reality. I just don't think it's a majority, let alone a sizable one.
Your alleged appreciation of horse dongs as an ideal cocaine delivery system is now being mentioned in a second post.
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Yeah, Slashdot is a pseudonymous site that is read regularly by a minority in the IT business, and of that group, a far smaller percentage would bother posting. Even if we one accepts that the majority of posters view the IT industry the way far too many did the property market some years back, what does that mean in the grand scheme of things. Most of the people I know are working their arses off. We know that this would be a shitty time to lose a job. Even if in a "secure" job, only an arrogant nutter wou
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Whilst there's still quite a number of Finns working for Nokia Siemens Networks (though surprisingly few; lots were fired when the Germans couldn't be touched) the interesting thing is that even Nokia has not really been a Finnish company for ages. Most of the decline has happened since it was bought out by Americans.
nokia also pays quite not so much taxes to finland as it used to.
through taxes of wages though, sure, quite a lot still. but a lot less than what it used to.
finnish government subsidies their research still in the old proportions though. which is sort of funny. or sad.